


The Worst Feeling, Is Feeling Nothing At All

by Ratkovich



Category: Shameless (US)
Genre: Depression, Infidelity Outside of Ian Gallagher/Mickey Milkovich, M/M, Suicide Attempt
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-04
Updated: 2019-12-04
Packaged: 2021-02-26 00:35:07
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,595
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21674599
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ratkovich/pseuds/Ratkovich
Summary: Ian reflects on Mickey’s actions in “Prison Gang Bang”
Comments: 27
Kudos: 69





	The Worst Feeling, Is Feeling Nothing At All

**Author's Note:**

  * For [](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts).



> Companion piece to Ride’s Prison Gang Bang. If you haven’t read hers, read it first but heed her warnings. This piece goes directly with hers.
> 
> I’ve never written before, take it easy on me 😉
> 
> Also, creds to Ride for her reworking my ending ❤️

_**Ian seethed as he climbed to the top bunk. He held his breath until he heard Mickey’s soft snoring a few minutes later. And then he cried.** _

Holding himself, arms wrapped tightly around his sides and head bowed to rest on his bent knees, Ian shrunk within himself. He couldn’t bring himself to acknowledge the weight of what he had just witnessed. He couldn’t bare to look down at Mickey while he continued to snore softly from the bunk below. He hated that Mickey sounded so peaceful. So relaxed. He hated that he had just rolled over so easily like nothing just shook Ian to his very core, as if it didn’t even affect Mickey at all. 

Ian’s tears kept falling hotly down his cheeks. His body shaking and wrecked with despair. He tried to keep quiet, tried not to wake Mickey. It was becoming increasingly more difficult as the grief rolled through his body. Every muscle ached from clenching, every joint sore. Every bone felt brittle under the weight of his sobs. He scrubbed his face, wiping the stale tears and trying to cease the new ones. 

He felt the tremors starting to take over his body, holding his right hand out in front of him watching as it shook. He wondered just how things got so bad with him and Mickey. How could Mickey, who turned himself in to protect Ian in prison, be so cruel? What drove him to such a point that he could do... that. Ian couldn’t even bring himself to acknowledge it again. The pain feeling too close to what Terry Milkovich had done. Making him watch at gunpoint while Mickey had the gay fucked out of him by the Russian whore. Thinking about the rape by proxy, Ian started to gag, his tremors becoming worse. He stretched his legs out flat on the bunk and leaned his back against the wall. Holding his hands in front of him he remembered all the times those hands touched Mickey. They touched him in so many ways. Lovingly, roughly, frustratingly, worriedly, jealously... the very hands that were shaking out of control in front of him had loved and caressed the man below him in ways he never knew possible until that man had come into his life. Those hands had comforted Mickey, had reassured him, had coaxed the most intense orgasms from him. 

Or so he thought until he watched Juan do exactly that. Ian still couldn’t acknowledge the connection that Juan and Mickey shared. It wasn’t just a hate fuck.. what Mickey and Juan had done was too intimate. Mickey had moaned his name in a genuine and uninhabited way, as though he was truly enjoying being railed by the built fucker. And the way Juan had held him. The way he moved Mickey onto his side almost lovingly and tucked his head into Mickey’s neck, tenderly exploring his mouth, Ian’s Mickey’s mouth. The way Mickey laid there accepting another man’s cock not out of just physical sex, but out of pure emotion. It destroyed every fibre of Ian’s being. It tore through him savagely and made him want to hate Mickey. It made him feel so alone, so anguished and so forlorn. And yet, a small part of him watched knowing he deserved it. 

_**“Fuck another guy?” Mickey chuckled. “Really? You were in full ass relationships. It’s about time you see what I was up to when you were chasing around whatever motherfucker you thought was better for you than me.”** _

The truth was, Mickey was right. Ian had fucked around on him. He had done the porn without using protection, and he had the gall to stand up and demand that Jackson used one while he fucked Mickey. He had willingly made Svet pay him fucking $50 to visit Mickey in jail, and he told him. He fucking told Mickey that. He told Mickey he’d wait for him. Sure, they both knew it was a lie, but he told him. And why was it a lie? Why did Ian have to lie to Mickey that he would wait? Why couldn’t he wait? Ian had literally driven Mickey to the edge of his life begging him to come out for him and yet he couldn’t deal with Mickey behind that glass? He asked everything of Mickey. He was never satisfied, he just took and took and fucking took and Mickey gave him it all. Never asked questions. Never questioned coming back for him after he escaped, never questioned turning himself in for Ian after the Gay Jesus incident. And Ian just took more and more and more. 

Ian squeezed his eyes shut, balling his hands into fists and rubbing his eyes dry again. He was angry. He was angry with himself because he could understand Mickey’s pain now. He understood how Mickey must have felt in prison by himself knowing that Ian was on the outside fucking whomever. He knew that Mickey was in prison in the first place because of him. He thought of how Mickey must have felt sitting on one of these hard cement bunks with the scratchy blanket and the shit for foam mattress. He thought about how spiritless Mickey must have felt. How depressed and dejected he must have been. How dark his mind would have been. 

Ian knew that darkness. He knew what it felt like to feel nothing. Depression isn’t about feeling just sadness. It’s about being unable to feel anything. It’s the worst feeling to feel, to feel nothing at all. He knew that this is where Mickey was, while Ian was sleeping with Caleb. While he was sleeping with Trevor. While he was finding his calling in life as an EMT. While he lived his life without even really thinking about Mickey until it was convenient for him to do so. Because isn’t that what Mickey was to him after all? Convenient? The first word that he’d escaped and Ian realized he could have him back in the way he wanted and he jumped. He couldn’t stay with him while he was in his darkest time but by damn, the minute he heard he was out of prison, his interest was sparked again. 

Ian huffed a laugh at that, that he couldn’t stand to be with Mickey in his darkest time. Because Mickey did exactly that for Ian. He stood by his bed, their bed, while Ian was devoid of any energy or feeling during his lowest lows. He changed the sheets when Ian pissed in the bed because he’d been there for so long that he couldn’t even get up to go to the bathroom. He counted Ian’s pills every day and made sure he ate and made sure he stayed alive, and Ian couldn’t even wait for him and visit him in prison. 

He looked down and stared at his hands again. He rubbed his fingers along his left wrist, unable to even feel the sensation of skin on skin. He was so wrecked, so demolished and dismantled. He didn’t deserve Mickey. He didn’t deserve anything Mickey had ever done for him. Mickey should have just stayed in Mexico and not come back to prison for him. He didn’t fucking deserve any of this. Ian leaned over to the end of his bed and peeled back the foam mattress reaching for the book underneath. Closing his hand around it he pulled in back onto his lap, sitting back against the wall and crossing his legs. His mind was black. It was void. He opened the book and took out the makeshift shiv, rolling it around in his hands. He couldn’t feel anything, but he could feel the power that this shiv held. He could fix everything for Mickey with this. He could take himself out of the equation and Mickey could be with Juan. He could let Mickey be free. 

Holding the shiv like a lifeline, a fresh wave of hot tears burned their way down his face. How had he failed his Mickey this badly? The Ian and Mickey that once were laughing and stumbling down the sidewalk belting Love is a Battlefield had now become this soulless version who lived to hurt each other. He had to break the cycle. He had to stop the toxicity. He had to let Mickey go. He had to let himself go. 

He gripped the shiv solidly with his left hand, he’d made his decision. He started to lift his arm, closing his eyes and letting his head roll back, taking a shuddering breathe.

“Hey Gallagher,” Mickey mumbled sleepily from the bottom bunk. 

The interruption startled Ian and he dropped the shiv to the mattress. 

“Hm?”

“Love you.”

“I love you, too,” Ian replied, feeling the emotion swell in his heart. He let out a heavy sigh of relief as Mickey climbed up onto his bunk and held him. Slowly, Ian came back into his body. He could feel Mickey shaking too, his hands clawing all over Ian, trying to hold him tighter and tighter as if he’d disappear if he let go. Mickey was mumbling something, over and over again but Ian’s ears were ringing too loudly to hear. 

Without hesitation Ian reached for the shiv and tossed it across the room. He’d do better. He’d be better. He had to be. 

“We gotta be better,” Mickey muttered as if he’d read Ian’s mind. He buried his face in Ian’s neck and cooed quietly as Ian rubbed his back. “Enough pain, right?” 

Finally, Ian could say that it was. 


End file.
